ND/Mass Combat House Rules
Elements and Forces Special Classes ;Spirit (Spi) The element consists of Diffuse or Insubstantial elements that are highly resistant to the attacks of most normal combatants. Only other spirits and some highly specialized anti-spirit units can readily defeat them. Examples include elementals, nature spirits, and ghosts. Mobility ;Land Mobility :Wheeled (Wld): Elements that move using muscle powered wheels. They are nearly as fasted as Mounted elements on roads but are slower than Foot elements off-road. Optional Features ;Hero To count as a hero, an individual must have a weapon skill of 20+ and either an unencumbered Dodge of 10+ or either a Block or Parry of 14+, without using shield DB. Element type is Bowmen for archers and crossbowmen, Heavy Infantry for most melee fighters, Light Infantry for slingers, scouts, or spear throwers, and Battle or Support Mages for spellcasters. Mounted heroes are treated as Horse Archers, Cataphracts, Heavy Cavalry, or Scout Cavalry as appropriate. A hero normally has Good equipment quality, but if much of their gear is exceptional, they may qualify for Fine or Very Fine equipment. A hero normally as Average troop quality. A hero with Soldier or Tactics of 12+ is Good quality. Soldier or Tactics of 14+ is required for Crack quality, and Soldier or Tactics of 16+ is required for Elite quality. Hero units may have additional Optional Features or Special Classes at the GM's discretion. Troop Quality There are three new Troop Quality levels: Crack, Poor, and Terrible. * Crack: These are troops that would normally be Good quality after they have extensive combat experience, or picked troops that are not seasoned with combat veterans. They have a TS Modifier of +75%, a Raise Modifier of +150% (+75% for Fanatics), and a +30% Maintain Modifier. * Poor: These are troops that aren't quite Average nor Inferior, such as poorly trained conscripts or somewhat inexperienced militia. They have a TS Modifier of -25%, a Raise Modifier of -25%, and a -25% Maintain Modifier. * Terrible: These are soldiers that are worse than Inferior: poorly trained and unenthusiastic conscripts; parade ground armies with corrupt and unprofessional NCOs; and peaceful civilians suddenly given weapons. They have a TS Modifier of -75%, a Raise Modifier of -75%, and a -75% Maintain Modifier. If Terrible troops also have Poor equipment, the combined TS, Raise, and Maintain modifier is only -80%. Raising a Force ;Revenue Each region controlled by the Resistance has a population and an average per capita monthly income. The Resistance can set a tax between 10% and 100% (on a per region basis), and each month the Resistance earns population * average income * tax. Tax rates higher than 10% have a chance of reducing the average income of the region, with higher tax rates reducing the average income at higher rates. ;Summoning Levies Levy forces have half normal TS for the first two weeks after they've been called up, as members report for duty, reorganize, and retrain. They are available for combat during this period, but their two months of free service do not start until they are at full TS. ;Converting Levies A normal unit can be converted to a levy, or a levy to a normal unit, by encamping the unit for four weeks and paying 20% of the unit's raise cost. The unit must be encamped within two days travel of the unit's home. Levies can be retrained or refitted while being converted. ;Initial Troop Quality Every element gets its initial troop quality from the element type and the location it is recruited from. Not all troops can be recruited in all locations and different nations will have better or worse troops based on culture and historical experience. ;Refitting Troops Elements can be refitted with the captured gear of defeated enemies. This takes one week and can be combined with raising, converting, or training a unit. The unit gets the equipment quality of the defeated enemy. Using captured enemy gear this way reduces the loot from the defeated enemy unit by 80%. ;Battlefield Experience Each time a unit survives a battlefield, it gains 1 experience. It then loses 1 experience if it took more than 40% casualties, half its experience (round the remaining experience down) if it took more than 50% casualties, and all its experience if took more than 75% casualties. A unit can be retrained to lock in its experience and improve its troop quality by 1 step after earning 2 experience. Retraining takes one week per $10K of the difference in the raise costs of the improved troop and the unimproved troop. Units with more experience are cheaper to retrain: each extra point of experience reduces the cost by 20%, to a minimum of 0. The retraining time is based on the adjust cost, but can't be reduced below the lower of four weeks or the normal time to raise the unit. A unit cannot move or fight in any battles while it is being retrained, and if it moves or fights in a battle, an entire week of training needs to be redone. A very experienced unit can improve its quality by multiple steps at once instead of reducing the cost of training. It takes 8 experience to raise the quality by two steps or 15 to raise it by three. The Logistics Force ;Maintaining a Force To simplify bookkeeping, Administration cannot be used to increase or reduce the cost of maintaining forces. Units that are basically stationary (no movement beyond daily patrols or 8 days of movement in a month that stays within friendly territory) in friendly territory have 1/2 their normal maintenance costs and require 1/2 their normal LS. Units that are training or acting as instructors cannot be maintained at half cost. Units that are more than 100 miles via road, 50 miles off-road, or 1000 miles via coasts or rivers from friendly territory have 2x their normal maintenance costs and require 2x their normal LS. Levy troops require no logistics force while operating within two days of their home base. Mercenary troops have a higher maintenance cost than similar non-mercenary troops, but don't require extra LS for that cost. A unit's maintenance cost is determined by the worst modifier for the month: a unit that spends 2 days outside of friendly territory costs double to maintain, even if it is stationary in friendly territory for the rest of the month. ;Campaign Season The campaign season is four months long, covering August, September, October, and November. ;Force Replacements Troop quality is determined by training and culture and all new troops are raised at the appropriate quality level. If an army has created higher quality troops through battlefield experience, it may not be able to raise fresh units of the same quality to act as replacements. Adding lesser quality troops to a high quality unit generally lowers the quality of the high quality unit, but there are ways to get around it. In general, if a unit gets has its size increased by more than 10% and the new troops are of a lower quality than the unit, the unit's quality drops to the average of the two quality levels: adding Average reinforcements to an Elite unit turns the entire unit into a Good unit. Any battle experience is lost. Cadres A unit can absorb more reinforcements if it is given time to absorb them and train them to the unit's standards. A unit can take up to 60% of its size in lower quality reinforcements without losing quality (and indeed, raising the quality of the reinforcements) by taking four weeks to train with them. This training is expensive (pay the cost to raise the quality of the reinforcements normally) but is an easy way to quickly produce a high quality armor. The high quality unit loses all its battle experience and can't absorb any more reinforcements without losing quality until it has gained at least one battle experience. Units acting as cadres and absorbing reinforcements cannot move or fight in any battles and must repeat the full week of training if they do move or fight in a battle. The reinforcements are keep their lower quality until the training with the cadre unit is complete. Instructors A high quality unit can be used as instructors to improve the quality of newly raised troops. Each element assigned to act as an instructor can train ten elements to its quality. Raising new elements with instructors has the normal cost of raising a new element of the appropriate quality. Instructors don't save money, they just allow veteran units to raise better units than a nation's normal training programs. Elements acting as instructors cannot move or fight in any battles and must repeat the full week of training if they do move or fight in a battle. Elements in the process of being raised do not exist for mass combat purposes until their training is complete. Elements Unit costs and values have been changed. The spreadsheet is authoritative. Most noticeably, Heavy Infantry have TS 5. Also, flying units are generally much cheaper to raise and maintain. Light and Heavy Chariots have been removed. Cavalry has been reorganized into several different types: * Cataphracts are heavily armored and armed horseman, trained to fight with bow and melee weapons. They have TS 3, Cav, F. * Heavy Cavalry are heavily armored and armed horsemen, trained to fight as shock troops. They have TS 5, Cav. * Horse Archers are lightly armored horseman, trained to scout or fight with bows. They have TS 2, Cav, F, Rec. * Light Cavalry are lightly armored horseman, armed with small bows or crossbows. They fight at range but don't have Horse Archers' skill at scouting. They have TS 2, Cav, F. * Scout Cavalry are lightly armored horsemen, armed with javelins and other light weapons. They fight as skirmishers and excel at scouting. They have TS 2, Cav, Rec. Fighting Forces in Motion Wheeled units move at 25 miles/day on roads or 8 miles/day off-road. Element Commanders A PC attached to an element may increase its quality for the duration of one battle (including the reconnaissance contest) by succeeding in a Leadership roll. Critical success increases quality two levels and critical failure reduces it by one level. NPCs, including Allies and opposing commanders, can not do this. Defense Bonuses An encamped force may always claim a Defense Bonus unless it is at the No Security Posture, even if it doesn't have initiative in a pitched battle or isn't bunkered during an encounter battle. Ambushes Ambushers only benefit from defensive bonuses without taking a defense strategy on the first round of combat. On subsequent rounds, they must take a defense strategy to get a defense bonus. Battle Strategy Predictions When choosing a Battle Strategy, a commander must also secretly record three battle strategies. One of these strategies is the one he predicts the enemy commander to choose and the other two are options he predicts the enemy command will not choose (and cannot be the Parley or Retreat strategies). If he correctly predicts the enemy strategy, he gets a +1 on his Battle Strategy roll, and if the enemy chooses a strategy that he predicted they would not choose, he gets a -1 on his Battle Strategy roll. If either side initially choose a Deliberate strategy and then the other side switched, or if both sides chose Defense strategies and were changed to Skirmish, they do not change or reveal the predictions until the final strategy is established. Predictions are only compared to the final strategy. It is possible for both commands to correctly predict each other's strategies, and cancel out the bonuses, or for both to surprise each other, and cancel out the penalties. Risk Modifier Commander do not add their Risk Modifier to their Battle Strategy roll. They may attempt significant actions like anyone else. Multiple PC Commanders In order to make things as entertaining as possible for the players, if there are multiple PC commanders at a battle, each PC will be given full responsibility for a portion of the battle. The single PC general is responsible for maneuvering the forces into contact with the enemy and the reconnaissance contest, though a different PC can perform the maneuvering from the one who rolls in the contest. After the reconnaissance contest is resolved, the actual battle is resolved as a series of smaller bottles. These battles are called fronts and each PC commander participating in the battle has his own front. ;Separating Forces into Fronts The side that lost the reconnaissance contest splits its forces into fronts, one per PC commander. There are no restrictions on how forces are divided: it can be equal among all fronts or as lop-sided as pleased. A single PC overall commander has the final decision for divisions among the PC side (subject to veto by the GM so that all PCs have something useful to do). It is suggested and recommended that each PC general have a standard front of troops out of all the troops in the battle, but the decision is up to the PCs. After units allocation to fronts is finalized, initial intelligence for that side, based on the battle type (Mass Combat 30) is announced. The side that won the reconnaissance contest that splits its forces into fronts, one per PC commander, and matches its fronts with the fronts of the side that lost the reconnaissance contest. The winning side then announces its initial intelligence. In the case of ties, the PCs set up first and the GM will split his forces proportionally with the PC fronts. Note that the GM can, but does not have to, create additional subordinate commanders for GM controlled forces. It is entirely appropriate for a single NPC commander to face off in individual contests against four PC commanders with no penalty for the NPC. NPC commanders supervising multiple fronts may only pick one Risk Modifier and take their Misfortunes of War from the front with the heaviest casualties. ;Fighting the Battles The length of the battle round is determined by the total forces of the smaller side in the battle, not the smallest force in any given front. Aside from that, each front is its own separate battle, and decisions made in one battle do not directly effect other fronts. It is possible for a PC commander to win an overwhelming victory and wrack up +8 in PB on one front while an allied commander is slowly losing ground in another front. 'Transferring Troops and Collapsed Fronts After any round of battle, troops can be transferred between fronts freely. Troops get the PB of the front they move into and calculate casualties as the worse of the front they left and the front they're moving into. Calculate TS and class superiority normally based on the new troops in the front. A front is collapsed if it has taken 100% casualties, or has won or tied after choosing the Fighting Retreat strategy, or has completed a Full Retreat strategy. An enemy with a collapsed front MUST reinforce with fresh troops, since there's still a PC that needs to fight. The reinforcing troops calculate casualties and PB normally, to a maximum of -50% casualties for the reinforcements and +5 PB for the other side. A PC with a collapsed front can either get reinforcements, using the above rules, or sit out the rest of the battle in which case any enemy troops in his former front can be moved to other fronts. This doesn't apply if all fronts on a side are in collapse at the end of the same round: the battle is over and the pursuit can possibly begin. Note that it is legitimate to have multiple fronts Retreat while one front remains fighting a rear guard action to hold up pursuit. This is generally pretty rough on the troops fighting the rear guard. ;Parley Any commander on any front may start a Parley, but the Parley only occurs if all commanders on all fronts agree to it. If a Parley attempt fails, only the commander who started the Parley takes the penalized Defense strategy, not all commanders on his side. ;Sieges In a multifront siege, some fronts may be involved in Deliberate Attacks against Deliberate Defenses (called "siegework") while other fronts may choose different strategies (called "activity"). Split each siegework battle round into 6 segmented battle rounds during which activity can take place. Only roll for the siegework battle strategies at the end of the 6 segmented rounds, and only if the forces involved in the front performed siegework for at least 4 of the 6 segments. If a front did activity for three or more segments, treat any segments that were intended to be siegework as though the attacker had chosen the Attack strategy and the defender the Defense strategy and resolve them all at once after the six battle round.